Start Small & Simple with Low-Cost Alternatives - and Start Making Money on Live Events
Hi, I'm Bari Baumgardner, founder of SAGE Event Management. Today I'd like to talk to you about the elephant in the room. If you’ve never hosted your own event, it’s probably the thing that’s keeping you from doing so. It’s the fear that you can’t afford it and won’t be able to fill the room.
Here’s the good news: there are several low-cost alternatives for hosting live events. You don't have to be so scared. I know that it can be daunting to think about hosting an event for 100 or 150 people. Or even 1,000 people - maybe that’s the big dream for yourself and your business.
But the reality is that you can make big dollars with little overhead - and keep things simple - with a low-cost alternative to a live event.
How to Host Your Live Event for Free
You probably think that in order to host your own live event, you’ll have to invest five or six figures. But what if I told you that you could only invest $5,000? What if I told you that you could do it for $500? What if I told you that you could actually host your own live event for no cost at all?
You can do it, and here's why. At SAGE Event Management, we define a “live event” as any opportunity when you can get two or more people together and speak to them about what you do. Think about that. Where could you be hosting your own live events? In your living room?
Earn Thousands of Dollars in Your Living Room
We actually had a client in our “Ready for the Stage” program who did exactly that. He hosted five people at a live event in his living room. He talked them through his great content, he told them a little bit about his amazing program, and he sold 60% of them. For him, that was a big payday. Immediately, he had paying clients who were excited to work with him.
If you're selling a $2,000, $4,000, or $10,000 product and you convert two, three, four, or five people - that's a very lucrative evening in your living room. It can be done. You don't have to invest big dollars into a hotel venue to make money.
Small-Scale Events Are Ideal Testing Grounds for First-Timers
In fact, I often recommend that first-time clients consider doing some small-scale events before investing in a big one. Small-scale events are a great way to test things out, including:
- Your unique value proposition
Your content
The flow of your programming
Crowd reception to your package
Name of your package
Pricing of your package
All of those things can be beta-tested at a small event - and it can be done while you make money.
Low-Cost Alternative Venues: Churches, Community Centers, Shared Offices
Where could you host an event in your community? Your venue could be a yoga studio. It could be a church. Churches have amazing rooms that often include audiovisuals and kitchens for easy catering. You could host live events in local community centers, which have many of the same amenities of churches.
Live events can also take place in a boardroom in a shared office. If you work from home and don’t have access to a shared office, you can often rent one out. Shared workspaces are growing more and more popular in communities across the country, and they're unbelievably affordable. Many of them come with great benefits, including coffee machines, water, access to food and beverages, plus people to welcome your guests - all the little things that make it easier for you to host a successful event.
Set the Date & Get Yourself Out There with a Small-Scale Event
It's perfectly fine to start small and start simple in order to start making money. You can host an event that lasts for two hours, four hours, or one day. You don't have to host a three-day event to get yourself out there. Really and truly, this is what I want you to do:
Set a date and put it on your calendar.
Find a location and book the venue.
Go do it! Start getting the word out about your event.
Your Small Event is a Springboard to Big Success: You Can Do It!
Here’s the final piece. It doesn't matter whether you have five people, 15 people, or 50 people, - the number of guests that you have is the right number. It's where you're meant to be. If you pick the date, get the location, five people sign up, and you think: "I shouldn't do this, I only have five people” - then you are thinking about events the wrong way.
Instead, take those five people and use the opportunity as a springboard for the bigger live events that you know you're meant to host in the future. Know that you can do it, know that you can make money from it, and know that it is exactly that easy. As we say at SAGE: Go Team, Go. You can do this!
Take charge of your future. Discover more three more helpful video tips from SAGE Event Management - for free - and learn how to monetize your live event before it even begins!
